When The Cold Wasn't So Bitter
by CrookedMeasure
Summary: A oneshot that takes some liberties with the thoughts and actions of Byakuya after bringing Rukia back to Soul Society. No Pairings. Please Critique. Angst, but hopefully in a good way. How is the pacing? Too Rushed?


Kuchiki Byakuya was the embodiment of ice

Kuchiki Byakuya was the embodiment of ice. Everyone knew it and though not to his face, all of his subordinates agreed with anyone who had the balls to say it, that yes, their captain was the cold pinnacle of professional perfection. Any order from the top, no matter how aggravating, was carried out with exacting care to every expectation. Byakuya was a proud man and when he received the dispatch to retrieve his sister from the living world by force if necessary, he did not fold the paper in worry, or shout as his attendants. When he was briefed on her crimes before his and his vice-captain's departure, he did not try to justify her actions. Renji made enough of a ruckus for the both of them. Even when he felt concrete beneath his sandals as they hunted his own sister. Even when Renji dared to bare steel at _his_ charge. _His_ honor. _His_ obligation. Byakuya felt much as a glacier might. That Renji now had his calloused hands wrapped around a neck as thin and delicate and lovely as the woman's whom he had loved, still did love, seemed an unfortunate inevitability to be taken with unperturbed grace.

What had provoked Byakuya into action, he mused, was not the thought of Renji touching her, as he might have expected. No, it was the idea that some boy whose record of existence was so little as to hardly be worth noticing felt that he could protect her where Byakuya could not. At that gesture, Byakuya was a maelstrom. A volcano. A tempest of wrath and shame and absolute _jealousy_ because wasn't it _his_ obligation there beneath Renji's hands, not this brat's? And wasn't that _his_ charge with all her blood and fear? And somewhere in those all too familiar eyes wasn't that his promise and his _wife_? Byakuya reminded himself as he slid steel into the boy with some satisfaction that neither of them could save her, anyway.

So Byakuya finds it strange, after the work for the day is finished and Rukia is locked away in her cell, after the boy is most likely dead and undoubtedly powerless, after the paperwork is in order and missed audiences have been rescheduled, that the inner lake of the head of the Kuchiki family remains turbid. He doesn't want to accept the strange animosity that he feels, wriggling under his skin or the unease of his breaths as he draws them in, until he remembers that he is a glacier and that even glaciers move.

In fact, he is startled to see, he is no longer sitting his office desk and Renji is looking up at him from a shock of passionate red hair, fingers trying to cover the untidy scrawls he tries to pass off as paperwork. His mouth is moving and Byakuya is almost certain that he is saying something, but it is so strange, Byakuya thinks, because he can't hear anything. His questions are completely drowned out by Byakuya's thundering heart. _And why is it beating so fast anyways? The hair. The hair. The bold red criminal hair_. Byakuya thinks to himself but doesn't understand as he catches chunks of it in his hands and drags his subordinate to the ground, flattening his face next to Renji's struggling head slapping and bucking up from the ground like a fish gasping for air, mouthing out "why"s and "stop"s and some stammered apology for what? Not even Byakuya knows until it hisses out from his own mouth, his heart jumping and jangling up his insides with every word,

"If you ever speak to my sister in that way again, I will break you. If you ever put your hands on her throat again, I will kill you. Don't touch her, don't speak to her, do not think of her or I will leave nothing left of you but bones in your desk drawer."

It comes out in a wheeze Byakuya finds entirely unfamiliar. He finds himself unfamiliar.

Byakuya pushes Renji from him with a wild sweep of his arm. Both lay there for a moment, sharing the cool floor of their office from their opposite sides of the room. Erratic and bewildered as each of them are, it is Renji to first shout out a strangled reply, "She's going to die, Byakuya! Fuck. _Fuck_." He shouts emphatically, "And you're here playing big brother with _me_? I _spoke_ to her? Those bastards in Central are going to _kill_ her. Fucking _do _something about it, Captain!"

Like a hot-burning fire, Byakuya feels the heat and the turmoil rise and die just as swiftly. He breathes easier as every pricking moment of dew turns into frost as the familiar cold settles. He examines his subordinate's words and feels some deep tremor welling up against his returning calm.

Byakuya searches for words to blow in an ice age. He wants to see the snow pile on the chairs and these two lonely desks until he can't see the tops of either of their heads anymore. "The orders of Central 46 will be carried out as is our duty. The laws leave no room for me to 'Fucking do something about it". Her execution is in the wisdom and judgment of those laws to which we are _all_ subject. You are dismissed for the day, Renji." The cold enveloped him, deep and reassuring as Renji stalked out of the room and not even the slamming shut of the door behind him could cause a ripple as Byakuya laid the last of the paperwork to rest with a heart beating at a glacier's pace. But it did beat.

Byakuya wished he could bury it before he had to bury another Kuchiki.


End file.
